The bottle imp

The bottle imp is a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, first serialized in 1891. Its supernatural object offers a wish with a descending price: every owner must sell it for less than they paid.

Keawe, a Hawaiian sailor visiting San Francisco, buys a bottle whose imp can grant any worldly desire. The gift carries a final condition—whoever dies owning it is damned—so desire is tied to damnation from the moment he wishes for a beautiful home.

After Keawe has disposed of the bottle, illness drives him to seek it again; his marriage to Kokua then turns private fear into mutual sacrifice. Different currencies offer a possible escape, but love redirects the bargain as each tries to protect the other.

Stevenson joins a European devil-bargain motif to Hawaii, Tahiti, shipping routes, and the arithmetic of colonial money. The tale measures value against willing sacrifice, asking whether fortune can remain a blessing when its price must always pass to someone else.

"THERE was a man of the island of Hawaii, whom I shall call Keawe; for the truth is, he still lives, and his name must be kept secret; but the place of his birth was not far from Honaunau, where the bones of Keawe the Great lie hidden in a cave. This man was poor, brave, and active; he could read and write like a schoolmaster; he was a first-rate mariner besides, sailed for some time in the island steamers, and steered a whaleboat on the Hamakua coast."